Xerographic digital presses, for example, the Xerox iGen3, have been used for production of publications including books-on-demand, brochures, and manuals. These publications often require bookbinding which can be accomplished by, for example, applying a hot melt adhesive between binding surfaces.
In a typical imaging or printing process, a latent image is formed upon a photosensitive member (e.g., photoreceptor), and the latent image is subsequently rendered visible by the application of resin and pigment particles, or toner. The visible toner image is in a loose powdered form and can be easily disturbed or destroyed. The toner image is usually fixed or fused upon a substrate, which may be a substrate sheet of a plain paper, using a fuser roll.
To ensure and maintain good release properties of the fuser roll, release agents are applied during the fusing operation. Typically, these release agent materials are applied as thin films of, for example, nonfunctional silicone oils or mercapto- or amino-functional silicone oils, to prevent toner offset on to the fuser roll.
Problems arise, however, because xerographic prints are unavoidably contaminated by the release agents during fusing. The trace amount of release agents significantly reduces surface free energy of the prints and cause poor adhesion or separation between the prints and hot melt adhesives that is usually used in the art. For example, the surface free energy (SFE) of xerographic prints, as estimated by Lewis Acid-Base method, may range from 10 to 25 mN/m for most of printed substrates, while most of commercially available hot melt adhesives, however, work only for a substrate or print having a SFE of at least about 30 mN/m.
Thus, there is a need to overcome these and other problems of the prior art and to provide a bonded article and its method using dendrimers to facilitate adhesion between an adhesive and a substrate or a print that has low surface free energy.